


Vengeance is Mine

by oldenuf2nb



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Dark, Drama, Explicit Language, Heroes to Villains, Post-War, The Quidditch Pitch: Going Under
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-10-30
Updated: 2007-10-30
Packaged: 2018-10-27 16:26:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10812648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oldenuf2nb/pseuds/oldenuf2nb
Summary: Some things are simply unforgiveable.





	Vengeance is Mine

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Annie, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Quidditch Pitch](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Quidditch_Pitch), which went offline in 2015 when the hosting expired, at a time I was not able to renew it. I contacted Open Doors, hoping to preserve the archive using an old backup, and began importing these works as an Open Doors-approved project in April 2017. Open Doors e-mailed all authors about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact us using the e-mail address on [The Quidditch Pitch collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thequidditchpitch/profile).

  
Author's notes: A/N: _This was written before the release of Deathly Hallows, and immediately following a particularly horrifying instance of child abuse in the Pacific Northwest. As happy as I was that Dudley redeemed himself slightly, I still think Vernon and Petunia Dursley represent something really awful and insidious in human nature. People who neglect, abuse, torture or kill the innocent deserve no mercy._  


* * *

  


VENGEANCE IS MINE

_Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord._

Draco Malfoy stared at the front of the simple row house at Number 4, Privet Drive, his grey eyes unblinking as he waited in the cool darkness. His long blond hair fell around his faintly pointed face, catching in the dim reflection of the street light at the corner. He would never be invisible in the dark, even dressed as he was this night, in all black. He was too fair, too pale. His fallen angel, Harry had called him. Harry was the one who could be invisible, moving like a wraith, melding with the night, fading into the shadows, graceful, mercurial, a shifting entity of darkness. Harry had been the creature of the night. Before. Not so much, now.

Draco took a deep drag of the cigarette in his hand, and waited, staring sightlessly at the manicured lawn and the pristine Muggle automobile in the drive. ‘His uncles pride and joy’, Harry had said, that brand new car. Not his wife, or his son, or, heaven forbid, his nephew by marriage, but his yearly bloody brand new goddamned car. The corner of Draco’s mouth curled in the sneer that he’d almost forgotten how to use while life had been kind, and they had seemed blessed. Not so much, now. 

He’d never meant to fall in love with ‘the Boy who Lived’. In fact, for much of their time in school together, they’d hated one another with a burning passion. Passion. That was the word, all right: it marked every encounter they’d ever had, from trying to kill one another at Hogwarts, to joining the same side after Draco’s disastrous attempt to kill Albus Dumbledore had landed him with a price on his head, to the last frantic battles of the war. That passion, that fierce, unapologetic passion. It had helped them win, helped them annihilate the snake-like bastard, and when they’d finally stopped fighting it and had realized exactly what the source of it was, it had brought them together in a cataclysm of love and lust that had been consuming. It had lasted five years, and it had been miraculous. Not so much, now.

Draco heard the soft ‘pop’ of someone apparating nearby, and turned his head to see a dark clothed, hulking figure approaching him through the gloom. Only when the faint glow of the street light struck coppery hair did he breathe easy. Weasley. Finally. 

“Took you fucking long enough,” he said starkly, his eyes hard.

“Bite me,” came the reply. “You ready for this?”

“I’ve been ready for this forever,” he retorted, tossing aside his cigarette butt. 

Ron Weasley paused and looked at him, then looked at the obscenely innocuous house across the street. “For Harry,” he said flatly under his breath. Draco’s chest felt tight for a moment, and then he nodded in agreement. When he spoke, his voice sounded constrained.

“For Harry.” 

They set off across the street then, nearly of a height, one red-haired and broad shouldered, one slender and pale as a ghost. Malfoy muttered something as they stepped onto the lawn and the porch light went out with a soft hiss. Pausing before the door, Weasley muttered the spell that would unlock it and it swung open, allowing them entry into the front hall.

They’d planned this before they’d ever arrived. Weasley would take the cousin, Draco the Aunt and Uncle. They moved silently up the stairs, paused in the upstairs hall, and studied the doors. Harry had told Draco where everyone had slept once; Dudley in the biggest room with the attached bath, just at the top of the stairs. He still lived with Mummy, the wanker. Harry had been in the next, the smallest, on the left. (Of course, that hadn’t happened until they’d let him out of the fucking cupboard, Draco recalled with a sneer.) And the adults had had the room at the farthest end of the hall. Draco gestured toward the door immediately to their left with his head, and Weasley nodded his understanding and paused as Draco moved off stealthily to the door at the far end. He turned and looked back at Weasley with a slight nod, and they entered the bedrooms at the same time. 

Slamming the door against the wall for effect, Draco slapped on the light as the two people in the bed sat bolt upright in alarm. 

“Good evening,” he said calmly, his wand pointed at their stunned faces. The uncle was a fat walrus, the aunt a horse faced woman who had a head full of pink curlers. “Time to get up. No quick moves; I don’t want to have to hex anyone.”

They stared at him as if he had two heads, so shocked, so alarmed. Draco allowed himself a vengeful smile as they scrambled from their bed, reaching for the robes that were over the footboard. 

“Never mind those,” he said a bit snidely. “You won’t be needing them.”

“Is this about that…that _boy_?” Vernon Dursley spat, his face florid. 

“This is absolutely about _that boy,_ ” Draco answered starkly, gesturing toward the open door with his wand. “Now _move_.” 

When they arrived in the hallway, Draco could see that Weasley had the hulking nephew under control, although the dark stain on his pajama bottoms led Draco to believe that the lummox had wet himself. Weasley’s disgusted expression seemed to confirm that.

They herded their captives down the hallway, then down the stairs, ignoring the frantic questions that were tossed their way. When they arrived at the wedge shaped door under the stairs, Weasley flung it open and reached in, pulling on the slender chain that led to the bare light bulb. Draco stared inside, and felt his blood congeal near his heart.

They hadn’t changed it, not in all the years since. There was still a ratty little pathetic bedroll, and some broken action figures, as if the boy who’d lived there might be back at any moment. He swallowed against a sudden lump in his throat and turned hard eyes back to the three people who cowered in front of him.

“Get in,” he ordered darkly. They stared as if he’d lost his mind. “Do not make me repeat myself,” he snarled. “Get the fuck in.”

“We…we won’t fit,” Vernon Dursley blustered. “Dudders and I are four times his size…”

“I. Don’t. Give. A. Shit,” Malfoy said between clenched teeth. “Get the fuck in.”

Petunia Dursley went first, eyes wide and her boney knees trembling. Behind her went her ugly, damp son. And it took some doing, but Ron and Draco were able to cram Vernon in behind them. They weren’t going to be comfortable, but Draco didn’t care. They weren’t going to be in there for long. 

Draco shut and magically barred the cupboard, and the two men exited the house the way they’d come in, closing the door softly behind them. They paused on the front lawn, and Weasley looked over into his face. 

“How long to you suppose before someone finds them?” he asked with the beginning of a smug smile.

“A few days,” Draco answered vaguely, manufacturing a smirk.

“By then, old Dudder’s ought to be right ripe.” Weasley laughed tightly. “Okay, I’m off.”

“See you at work.” 

“Wish it could be more,” Weasley said thoughtfully. “Wish it would …matter.”

“Me, too,” Draco said softly, and Ron nodded, and then paused. 

“You sure you’re all right?” he asked, staring into Malfoy’s face.

“I’m fine,” Draco answered flatly, carefully controlling his expression. Keeping it neutral was one of the hardest things he’d ever done in his life.

“Malfoy…” Ron reached for his shoulder, but when Draco stiffened, he let his hand drop to his side. “I wish…” he whispered. Draco found his eyes briefly. 

“I know.” Silence settled around them.

“All right, then.” Weasley continued to stare for a long moment, then cleared his throat before nodding briskly and setting off down the street. The sound of his apparition carried back to Draco on the still night air. It was better that he’d gone; better that he never know what he’d helped to do. Weasley thought this had been a fairly innocent but slightly satisfying humiliation. Best he continue to think that. 

Draco turned then, staring at the front of the house for a long time before raising his wand and softly saying _‘Incendio’_. A ball of flame erupted from the end of it, landing against the front door. For a moment, Draco was afraid that he was going to have to recast the spell, but then there was a faint flicker near the baseboards, and the hungry flames began to lick up the outside of the doorframe. He turned to walk away, and then paused next to the open window of the brand new car. _“Incendio”,_ he repeated, mouth tight, and another small ball of flame spat into the darkened interior, igniting the expensive leather upholstery. He walked across the street and paused on the curb, and watched the car and the house burn for a long time. 

Finally, Draco walked away stoically, reaching into his inside pocket and withdrawing another cigarette, lighting it with the tip of his wand as he moved away. If he left now, he could still get a few hours sleep in the cot across from Harry’s in the Psychiatric ward at St. Mungo’s. Harry might not know he was there; post traumatic stress, the healer’s called it, years of child abuse and the after affects of the war finally shattering his mind. But Draco could afford the private room, and he could hold the limp hand, and he could spend time looking into the soulless green eyes that stared and stared, even if Harry didn’t know that he was there. 

He paused near the corner and stared back at Number 4, Privet Drive. The house was now fully engulfed in flames, and lights were beginning to blink on along the block. In the distance, he thought he heard a siren.

_Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord._

‘Not so much, now,’ Draco thought dispassionately, and disappeared with a ‘pop’.


End file.
